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Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point Audiobook
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A call to reform our antiquated political institutions before it’s too late—from the authors of How Democracies Die
“[Levitsky and Ziblatt] write with terrifying clarity about how the forces of the right have co-opted the enshrined rules to exert their tyranny.”—The Washington Post
ONE OF THE CALIFORNIA REVIEW OF BOOKS’ TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A NEWSWEEK BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
America is undergoing a massive experiment: It is moving, in fits and starts, toward a multiracial democracy, something few societies have ever done. But the prospect of change has sparked an authoritarian backlash that threatens the very foundations of our political system. Why is democracy under assault here, and not in other wealthy, diversifying nations? And what can we do to save it?
With the clarity and brilliance that made their first book, How Democracies Die, a global bestseller, Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt offer a coherent framework for understanding these volatile times. They draw on a wealth of examples—from 1930s France to present-day Thailand—to explain why and how political parties turn against democracy. They then show how our Constitution makes us uniquely vulnerable to attacks from within: It is a pernicious enabler of minority rule, allowing partisan minorities to consistently thwart and even rule over popular majorities. Most modern democracies—from Germany and Sweden to Argentina and New Zealand—have eliminated outdated institutions like elite upper chambers, indirect elections, and lifetime tenure for judges. The United States lags dangerously behind.
In this revelatory book, Levitsky and Ziblatt issue an urgent call to reform our politics. It’s a daunting task, but we have remade our country before—most notably, after the Civil War and during the Progressive Era. And now we are at a crossroads: America will either become a multiracial democracy or cease to be a democracy at all.
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"Levitsky and Ziblatt explain why we Americans are still in the fight of our lives. The smaller of our two major parties has traveled down the road of authoritarianism—rejecting fair election outcomes, casually accepting rightwing violence, and embracing extremist political figures. But our antiquated political institutions and practices entrench the power of this extremist minority and keep the pro-democratic American majority from governing. This eye-opening study, filled with analysis of analogous historical moments from around the world, is an essential primer in the struggle for democracy this century."
— Rep. Jamie Raskin, author of Unthinkable
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“[A] chilling study of how recent political turmoil demonstrates that, ‘far from checking authoritarian power, our institutions have begun to augment it’…A well-organized and convincing argument.”
— Kirkus Reviews -
“To stop democratic decay, we need to embrace our own tradition of constitutional reform…This book is concise, readable, and convincing.”
— Anne Applebaum, author of Twilight of Democracy -
An exceptionally persuasive book . . . [Daniel] Ziblatt and [Steven] Levitsky are two of America’s very best comparative political scientists, with expertise that makes them uniquely well-equipped for the subject they’re examining. . . . Tyranny of the Minority is one of the best guides out there to the crisis of American democracy.
— Vox -
Old democracies tend to last, and so do rich democracies, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt point out in this searing, unsettling, and essential new book, but American democracy, which is both old and rich, is dying. In Tyranny of the Minority, they explain why, and they explain, too, how to save it.
— Jill Lepore, author of These Truths -
Among rich democracies, America is uniquely vulnerable to authoritarianism. If that statement surprises you, it shouldn’t. In their new book, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt explain why this is true and how we can fix it: To stop democratic decay, we need to embrace our own tradition of constitutional reform. Just like their previous work, this book is concise, readable, and convincing.
— Anne Applebaum, author of Twilight of Democracy -
Extending the brilliant analysis of their runaway bestseller, How Democracies Die, the authors vividly analyze the facets of America’s democracy, some of them hardwired into our constitutional design and others baked into our history, that make our political system uniquely vulnerable to unrepresentative rule by the few over the many. To their credit, they offer no easy solutions, but Levitsky and Ziblatt challenge us to use our voices and our votes to push back against these inherently antidemocratic features of our endangered republic.
— Laurence H. Tribe, University Professor of Constitutional Law Emeritus, Harvard -
[A] chilling study of how recent political turmoil demonstrates that, ‘far from checking authoritarian power, our institutions have begun to augment it.’ . . . The authors bolster their wide-ranging narrative with geopolitical and historical examples and informed analyses of the intricate mechanisms of governance. . . . A well-organized and convincing argument.
— Kirkus Reviews -
In their must-read book, Tyranny of the Minority, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt cogently explain that Republicans, unable to appeal to a broader share of the electorate beyond diminishing numbers of White, rural Christians, have found ways to exploit, abuse and, indeed, break majority governance.
— Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post -
Levitsky and Ziblatt’s research shows with bleak clarity that the only thing standing between America and autocracy is the moral conscience and democratic ideals of the Republican partners of this government.
— New York Magazine -
A minority of voters can now inflict a legislative wallop of racism, sexism, nativism, homophobia, transphobia, and economic misery on the rest of us—and never have to pay for it at the polls. This is the ‘tyranny of the minority’ that Levitsky and Ziblatt rightly fear. No lawless strongman or populist autocracy, it’s a product of the very Constitution that we have been taught to admire.
— The New Yorker -
To their credit, they offer no easy solutions, but Levitsky and Ziblatt challenge us to use our voices and our votes to push back against these inherently antidemocratic features of our endangered republic.
— Laurence H. Tribe, University Professor of Constitutional Law Emeritus, Harvard -
This eye-opening study, filled with analysis of analogous historical moments from around the world, is an essential primer in the struggle for democracy this century.
— Rep. Jamie Raskin, author of Unthinkable -
A well-organized and convincing argument.
— Kirkus Reviews -
In their must-read book, Tyranny of the Minority, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt cogently explain that Republicans, unable to appeal to a broader share of the electorate beyond diminishing numbers of White, rural Christians, have found ways to exploit, abuse and, indeed, break majority governance.
— Jennifer Rubin, The Washington Post -
Levitsky and Ziblatt’s research shows with bleak clarity that the only thing standing between America and autocracy is the moral conscience and democratic ideals of the Republican partners of this government.
— New York magazine -
[Levitsky and Ziblatt] write with terrifying clarity about how the forces of the right have co-opted the enshrined rules to exert their tyranny. . . . In the book’s stark telling, Trump and the steamrolling far right didn’t get to where they are despite our revered Constitution. They got there because of it.
— The Washington Post -
Eye-opening.
— Newsweek -
Excellent . . . Levitsky and Ziblatt distinguish themselves by the clarity and scope of their account. For a one-stop-shop foray into the problem of America’s outlier status among democratic systems and the challenges of reform, Tyranny of the Minoritycannot be beat.
— New Republic -
In their exceptionally perceptive and wide-ranging new book, Tyranny of the Minority, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt document the rapid unravelling of democracy in nations from Peru to Thailand, Third Republic France to Viktor Orbán’s Hungary.
— Times Literary Supplement -
Crisply argued.
— The American Prospect -
[Tyranny of the Minority] is concise, readable, and convincing.
— Anne Applebaum, author of Twilight of Democracy -
This eye-opening study, filled with analysis of analogous historical moments from around the world, is an essential primer in the struggle for democracy this century.
— Rep. Jamie Raskin, author of Unthinkable -
Why has American democracy come so close to a breaking point while other Western democracies appear more stable? In this sobering study, Levitsky and Ziblatt blame the United States’ eighteenth-century constitutional order for its modern democratic woes.
— Foreign Affairs -
[Daniel] Ziblatt and [Steven] Levitsky are two of America’s very best comparative political scientists, with expertise that makes them uniquely well-equipped for the subject they’re examining. . . . Tyranny of the Minority is one of the best guides out there to the crisis of American democracy.
— Vox -
Old democracies tend to last, and so do rich democracies, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt point out in this searing, unsettling, and essential new book, but American democracy, which is both old and rich, is dying.
— Jill Lepore, author of These Truths -
Excellent . . . Levitsky and Ziblatt distinguish themselves by the clarity and scope of their account. For a one-stop-shop foray into the problem of America’s outlier status among democratic systems and the challenges of reform, Tyranny of the Minority cannot be beat.
— The New Republic -
In their exceptionally perceptive and wide-ranging new book, Tyranny of the Minority, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt document the rapid unravelling of democracy in nations from Peru to Thailand, Third Republic France to Viktor Orbán’s Hungary.
— The Times Literary Supplement -
Crisply argued.
— The American Prospect“Concise, readable, and convincing.
Awards
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A New York Times bestseller
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An Amazon.com bestseller
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About the Authors
Daniel Ziblatt is a professors of government at Harvard University. Ziblatt studies Europe from the nineteenth century to the present. He is the author, most recently, of Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy. He has written for Vox and The New York Times, among other publications.
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt are professors of government at Harvard University and the authors of the New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, which won the Goldsmith Book Prize, was shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize, and was named one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post, Time, and Foreign Affairs.
About Fred Sanders
Fred Sanders, an actor and Earphones Award–winning narrator, has received critics’ praise for his audio narrations that range from nonfiction, memoir, and fiction to mystery and suspense. He been seen on Broadway in The Buddy Holly Story, in national tours for Driving Miss Daisy and Big River, and on such television shows as Seinfeld, The West Wing, Will and Grace, Numb3rs,Titus, and Malcolm in the Middle. His films include Sea of Love, The Shadow, and the Oscar-nominated short Culture. He is a native New Yorker and Yale graduate.